Late on the evening of Friday, December 31st, 2021, AFSCME Council 3’s bargaining team reached a tentative agreement with the Hogan Administration for a new contract after months of difficult bargaining. This agreement provides for almost 12% in raises to the 20,000 members of AFSCME Council 3’s bargaining units.
After months of organizing and pushing through tough negotiations, we have secured almost 12% in raises between January 2022 and July 2023. AFSCME bargaining unit members will win:
- 7% in Cost-of-Living Adjustments: 2% in January 2022, 3% in July 2022, 2% in July 2023
- Two-step increases (an increase of around 4.8% total) – 1 step increase as soon as we ratify the contract, the other in July 2022 or January 2023 – whenever you “should” or have gotten your step in the past.
- In addition, AFSCME Council 3 has secured a $1000 bonus to be paid upon ratification of the agreement in January 2022.
In this agreement, AFSCME Council 3 and the State of Maryland settled the ongoing Emergency Pay Grievance for a total of $33 million, resulting in an additional 2% Cost of Living Adjustment for all AFSCME bargaining unit members and a one-time payment of $2500 to each of the 4,400+ grievants. The grievance AFSCME filed against the State is the largest case ever filed, and this settlement is the most significant amount ever secured by a state employee’s union. Our union is the only employee organization to win an emergency pay grievance case and win money for frontline employees.
Other Economic Victories
- Negotiated an additional Step 21 and Step 22 for all bargaining unit members.
- Continuation of Response Pay for the first pay period in January and ability for DBM to extend response pay- at their discretion.
- Pay Equity- This policy is inadequate but would mean that within the same UNIT (where a unit is defined as under the direct supervision of the same supervisor) if a new hire is brought in at a higher step then existing employees will also be moved up to that same step.
- DOC ONLY- Special Duty Bonuses will continue for 2022 and paid retro for 2021
- $1000 Bonus: Special Operations Group and Tactical Officers
- $500 Bonus: Contraband Team
- $500 Bonus: Weapons Certified
- $500 Bonus: Certified Training Officers
Updates On Leave and Other Benefits
- Juneteenth will now be an Official State Holiday.
- Two hours of admin time leave for booster shots with retro availability for all BU employees.
For vaccinated employees: DBM agreed to extend but not renew the 10 days of leave for a positive test.
- If leave has already been used in 2021, no additional leave will be made available.
- Any remaining or unused leave can be used thru 2022.
- DBM will temporarily be allowing a positive rapid test to access leave for positive tests reported from December 13th, 2021- March 1, 2022.
- Increased health and safety committee meetings to twice a year.
- If another emergency should occur, DBM agrees to make every reasonable effort to provide adequate PPE in accordance with MDH policy.
- Ability to meet with the Secretary of each agency or designee within 30 days of a declared emergency.
- Management agrees that under catastrophic health emergency, they will inform employees of potential exposure as soon as practicable.
- The Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services, Maryland Department of Health, Department of Juvenile Services, and Department of Human Services will develop a comprehensive method for uniformly tracking incidents of workplace violence within each Department.
What happens now?
Next, each bargaining unit must ratify the agreement in a vote conducted by mail ballot sent to the address our union has on file. We will have an update on the date ballots will be mailed out no later than Friday, January 7th.
